


You’ll Find It Funny (When You’re Looking Back Someday)

by th_esaurus



Category: Legend (2015)
Genre: M/M, Rough Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:59:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4367546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was around this time that Teddy Smith began his nightly habit of leaning on the wall across the road from Esmeralda's Barn with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and the top two buttons of his baby-blue shirt undone.  He'd a mole dead centre on his neck and tilted his chin back to show it off, waiting for someone to come by and offer him a match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You’ll Find It Funny (When You’re Looking Back Someday)

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I had already seen the film when I wrote this.

There was a time when Reggie was the clean-cut, crooked-smiled public face of the family and Ronnie was well known to be fresh free from the nut house and living in the fucking forest like a woodland hermit. If anyone had plans to go for either of the two, in a biblical sense, any sensible bets would've been placed on Reggie.

 

You'd have to be a little funny in the head to follow after Ron, they all said.

 

It was around such a time that Teddy Smith began his nightly habit of leaning on the wall across the road from Esmeralda's Barn with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and the top two buttons of his baby-blue shirt undone.He'd a mole dead centre on his neck and tilted his chin back to show it off, waiting for someone to come by and offer him a match.

 

He'd seen Ronnie, of course. On his rare evenings out at the club; Reggie's lumbering shadow. He looked like a natural-born thug, wider and less poised than his brother. Had thick hands, a ring with his own name on it. "In case he fucking forgets," Teddy had heard people scoff. When both men were well out of earshot.

 

Teddy suspected it was more so everyone else never fucking forgot.

 

He had followed Ron home one night. Tucked his cigarette behind his ear and jogged along about ten metres back, catching ever other sentence of Ron's story to his brother. Something about Nigeria. He sounded wildly impassioned, but his voice was a thick mumble, and Teddy liked the heavy lilt of it more than anything. Wondered what he'd sound like lusty, if he was that viscous on a good day. 

 

Reggie, gentle for a gangster so they said, put his brother to bed in his dandelion little caravan. The shit garden chairs outside made it look like a doll's house; a dead campfire with a burnished kettle on top. It was a little ominous by night, and Ronnie never turned on a light inside. Puttered around in the dark, his head probably brushing the ceiling.

 

He felt sort of sorry for Ronnie Kray.

 

Three days later he heard Ronnie had glassed a man in a brawl, blinding him in one eye and setting him up for a hefty divorce once his wife saw his fucked face. Nobody could remember what the slight that caused it was. If there even was one.

 

Teddy laughed and laughed and laughed. 

 

You'd have to be a little funny in the head, they said—

 

Well, Teddy thought some of the things that went through his head were pretty fucking hilarious.

 

So he waited outside the Barn with his unlit cigarette and looked Ronnie straight in the eye the next time he stepped out.

 

*

 

Teddy had, actually, had a conversation with Reggie when he was just about a teenager. He had bought a sweet little derringer from one of the Kray's ground men, got a little over-eager with it, popping wet clothes from the washing lines strung across the long, terraced rows. 

 

Reg had strode along the pavement and grabbed his wrist. Tight, tighter when he struggled, but not painful. A confident grip. "Oi, oi, little fella," he'd said, tall and smooth. "Where d'you get this? One of mine, right? One of my boys? Where d'you get it?"

 

Teddy had dutifully given up the name, and was surprised when Reg let him loose and didn't pocket the gun.

 

"Get a fucking bus into the country, all right, kid?" Reg said. "You're a decent shot but them clothes never did nothing to hurt you, right?"

 

He heard on the grapevine that the poor sod who sold him the derringer had his ears boxed for bribing trigger-happy children with dangerous toys. He'd crawled under his blanket in bed and giggled about it, wondered if the man's ears looked like cauliflowers. Kept the gun in his drawer with his socks. 

 

He had never met Ronnie. 

 

Ronnie, gossip said, was insane. Also, he liked to fuck boys.

 

Teddy, in his youthful optimism, decided the Krays came as a pair. He wondered if Ronnie's grip on his wrist would edge just over into something sore.

 

*

 

Ronnie did not light Teddy's cigarette. He waved off his company and strode over to Teddy and stopped directly in front of him.

 

"Do you like cigars," he said instead. It didn't seem like a question (Ronnie never asked, Teddy discovered later, a question that wasn't rhetorical or a stupid fucking idea to answer. Teddy had himself been called a stupid fuck once or twice in his life.)

 

Teddy shrugged. His sleeves were rolled up to flaunt another cluster of moles on his arm that he knew drove people mad. Ronnie's eyes, behind his thick glasses, flicked between Teddy's neck and his bicep. 

 

"Try it," Ronnie said, pulling one from the inside of his jacket. He had no cutter, and bit the rough end off, spitting it into the street. Put his thumb on Teddy's chin and pulled his mouth slack. Slotted the cigar between his lips. "You like that?"

 

Teddy shrugged again. 

 

"You like 'em fatter than that? Further back in your throat? Have you ever had a man's prick in your mouth?" Ronnie said bluntly. Teddy glanced briefly over Ronnie's shoulder; his men hovering and lighting up, chatting softly. Not with Reggie tonight.

 

"Yes, sir," Teddy said, grinning around the cigar as Ronnie lit it with a silver lighter. He did indeed wear a ring with his name on it – _RON_ – and the lighter also had his name engraved into the back. 

 

"Good, good," Ronnie muttered. "You seem like a good boy. Have you ever bit down on a prick—"

 

"Teddy."

 

"—Teddy, you ever bit down hard? Felt your teeth meet?"

 

"No, sir."

 

"Good boys ain't like that, are they," Ronnie carried on. He seemed to be having a conversation with himself. That little bubble of pity rose up in Teddy's stomach again and he thought about how much he wanted to show Ron a good time.

 

And then Ronnie said, "You put your prick anywhere near my face and I chew it off, got me?"

 

"Gotcha."

 

"Right. Good. Come on, then."

 

*

 

Reggie would, some weeks later, apparently decide that Ron was fond of Teddy and that Teddy was going to be sticking around, and he explained about Ron's living situation. It was good for him out here, he said, the fresh air. No people. "He gets paranoid," Reggie said, making a face, as though Ron's delusions were a mild inconvenience. "So it's best he lives—exclusively, right? Invite only."

 

"Like your club," Teddy replied, grinning. Reggie did not remember him, of course. He was in his twenties now, and slicked back his hair, and looked like a young man. He was not fool enough to figure this was the reason, but—

 

Reggie made Teddy a little dense. He was handsomer than Ronnie. Ronnie had that thick nose, deep-set eyes made smaller by his wide-rimmed glasses. Ronnie breathed mostly through his mouth. It made his kisses noisy. Still. He had a certain charm. 

 

"What about the tea party?" Teddy asked, waving at the chairs. The rusty little table.

 

Reggie made his face again. "He just fucking likes tea."

 

*

 

Teddy had found he had a mouth men liked to put their cocks into, and he could charge a decent going rate. The first bloke had fumbled in his pockets after and fairly thrown a couple of quid at Teddy, left before Teddy had even wiped his chin clean. After that, he started asking up front.

 

Ronnie, he suspected, did not pay in cash, but in favours. 

 

Teddy, a man with ambition, was more than all right with that.

 

There was no electricity in the shit caravan, and Ronnie kept his hand on the back of Teddy's neck to guide him down the muddy, steep ravine that kept his hideaway somewhat shrouded. In the dim moonlight, Teddy could see the front wheels were sunken into the mud, and the sole door was already open. He had an absurd image of Ronnie puttering about the place with squirrels helping him do the washing up and birds tweeting sanctimoniously at the window, Snow Fucking White of the forest, and he let out a burst of shrill laughter.

 

Ronnie's hand tightened on the back of his neck. Teddy was aware you could strangle a bloke from behind. With enough pressure.

 

"You know," Ron said, very, very low, "When you are in a mental institute, nobody fucking laughs at you. Nobody fucking laughs at all. It's very reassuring."

 

He held Teddy still outside the caravan. Teddy's polished shoes sticking in the slick mud a little way. Hard to make a run for it.

 

"My nan died when I was ten," Teddy started, talking fast, "And when we was stood at her grave all crying and dropping flowers and what, I just couldn't stop laughing. She'd been alive and now she was dead and that was so fucking funny and nobody else thought it was funny and my Dad dragged me out of the cemetery by the ear and punched me so hard my gums bled and my Mum was just standing at the grave wailing and I kept laughing until my Dad knocked my stupid arse right out."

 

He took in a deep breath.

 

"You find a lot of things funny, do you," Ron murmured.

 

"I don't find 'em funny, they just are."

 

"They should lock you away," Ron told him, and Teddy assumed this was his idea of a joke. "I'm going to fuck you very hard now, Teddy."

 

"Yeah," Teddy breathed. 

 

The inside of the caravan was clean and neatly-kept: Ron, bizarrely, a house-proud man. Furniture too small for him, a single bed, a hob that looked like it had never seen a lick of gas through its burners. A little fold-down dinner table. Teddy suspected he wasn't going to be wined and dined. 

 

And that was just fine.

 

Ron regarded him first of all. Stalked a little like something caged, in his tin can of a house. His shoulders were hunched and his eyes dark, and in only the moonlight he was more of a sensation than a sight. He kept opening and closing his fists, like he didn't know what to do with his hands. Built for violence, Teddy thought, and ran his teeth over his bottom lip.

 

He'd carried other men's bruises before, proudly so. Darkened marks on his neck and chest from laughing too much, taking too little seriously, not showing enough fucking respect. A reward for his insolence.

 

"Ronnie--" he started, before he'd thought exactly what to ask. Something about leaving him sore, something about leaving him owned. He wanted Ronnie to sign him like a contract. A fair exchange _: I give you this, and you give me--_? What? Teddy cared vaguely about fame and fortune in the way that all young men do, but most of all what he wanted was--

 

Reputation.

 

A chance to sit in the Krays' orbit until he was his own lunar body.

 

Or whatever nonsense mad boys dream of.

 

"You shut your fucking mouth," Ron snarled, and went for him. 

 

His mouth was hot and biting, his lips wide but poorly tended; dry and cracking on the inside. He did not fuck about, went into Teddy's mouth with his tongue, pulling his chin down and holding it there so that, for a while, all Teddy could do was stand and pant and have his lips lathed. He put his fingers lightly Ronnie's waist, under his shirt, but was smacked away instantly. 

 

"No, none of--no," Ronnie growled, grabbing at Teddy's wrists. He seemed momentarily at a loss for what to do with Teddy's hands, now he had them, and yanked one up towards his mouth, bit down on the meat of Teddy's palm.

 

When he was done, Teddy presented his other hand for the same treatment.

 

"What do you like," Ronnie said, deep and low. Everything about him was deep, his inset eyes and his open mouth and his rumbling voice. 

 

"You tell me," Teddy came back.

 

"Get on the floor," Ronnie said. And when Teddy knelt, he said, "Lower." And when Teddy got himself on all fours, Ron said, very quietly, "Lower."

 

He put his cheek against the linoleum floor. It smelled of dust and damp, but wasn't gritty. Wasn't filth. It was cool to the touch. Teddy raised his hands, his whole weight resting on his face and knees, and when he wasn't chastised, he slowly, carefully, unbuckled the belt around his waist.

 

It wasn't leather. Too cheap. Ronnie noticed. "I'm gonna dress you up nice," he said, lumbering to his knees behind Teddy. The implication of something ongoing made Teddy wet his lips. He wanted to look good for Ron. He wanted to be good for Ron.

 

Ronnie's every movement sounded slow and heavy, and Teddy wondered how spry he really was in a fight. He'd seen enough gaunt wounds and splintered bones around London Town that he knew the answer to his own damn question. Ron conserved his energy, he supposed. For the hunt. For the kill.

 

Ronnie pulled him back bodily by the hips, before he'd hand a chance to get his trousers down. And then he rubbed his mouth and chin and cheeks over the thin cotton, right against the swell of Teddy's arse. Like any other man would put his face between a girl's pert tits; Ronnie breathed hard into the cloth over his crack, warmed him up. 

 

"Ron," Teddy huffed, a little shaky.

 

But Ronnie was gone, single-minded now. He took a taut fistful of Teddy's shirt and yanked it up, jerking him bodily, but Teddy kept his face flat to the floor, pressed in harder as Ron got the bulk of his weight over Teddy's back, mouthing against the knots of his spine. He was still wearing his glasses. Teddy could feel them leaving dents in his skin. Some half mad part of him wanted Ron to push his face into Teddy's skin like putting paint to a canvas, distinct and recognisable. 

 

Ron was not of an artistic bent. He got to Teddy's shoulder blades and bit into the left one until it hurt. 

 

"You gonna fuck me or eat me?" Teddy managed, too brazen.

 

Ronnie jerked back, swaying like a drunkard, like Teddy's voice had forced him out of a reverie. An unpleasant reminder that there were two men present here. Not just Ron and his plaything. 

 

"What'd I tell you," Ron slurred, grabbing Teddy's hips and digging his nails in. There was nothing graceful about him, but he was cat-like nonetheless. Possessive and territorial. Clawed. 

 

"Shut my fucking mouth," Teddy said, quite calm, "but I ain't seen you come anywhere close to fucking it yet."

 

It earned him a slap, hard, on the flank of his right thigh. The second hit was practically a punch, Ronnie's fist balled, and he left no space between them, the beating mingling with the sting. Ron scrabbled to get Teddy's trousers off, suddenly frantic, and bared enough skin that he could pummel Teddy's pinked flesh unhindered. Christ, it hurt. He had a terrible strength to him, a boxer's strength, and Teddy put his sticky palms on the linoleum to brace himself better against each blow.

 

Teddy was already hard. His cock a heady weight between his legs, and Ron took a breather, panting shudderingly, to grab at his crotch, heft his hot prick, grunt his approval.

 

Teddy had, as a kid, got into playground fights and then lay on the concrete, laughing hysterically and palming his dick through his grey school trousers. He was, on the whole, avoided by his peers after the first few times, and only got back into the habit when middle aged men started paying him for the privilege. 

 

He led a charmed life, he thought. 

 

Others would disagree. 

 

Ron spat wetly between the cleft of his upturned arse. A real cowboy spit, noisy and vile, and rubbed it in with his blunt thumb. He was still fully dressed, and Teddy was a tangle, his shirt rucked under his armpits and his trousers askew around his thighs. He was going to look slapped in the morning, he reckoned, his cheek a bright round bruise. In a moment of wildness, he grabbed behind him for one of Ron's hands, dug his fingernail into the back of Ron's palm to leave a spiteful little half-moon indented into Ronnie's skin. Like for like. Some signature of Teddy's in return. 

 

Ron seemed touched by it. "All right," he murmured, agreeing to nothing. "All right. I'm gonna fuck you hard now, Teddy."

 

It was not, Teddy suspected, a warning he gave all of his boys.

 

Teddy had never--

 

He'd gone on his knees plenty. But Ron would be the first to--

 

His dickhead was thickly wet with spit, and wide and unrelenting. No time to adjust, just the breach of it, pushing the air out of Teddy's whole body like a syringe. Ron was grunting dog-like and low with the effort of forcing in, and when Teddy shut his eyes, he felt the trickle of a few sudden tears, wrung right out of him. He was sobbing, gutturally, but he could hear it like it was someone else. Eavesdropping on his own buggery.

 

It was the sort of thing he'd giggle at, if he'd stumbled across it. Too-big Ron and little Teddy Smith, smashed into the plastic floor. Attached at the hip. 

 

"How does it make you _feel_?" Ron hissed, not looking for a real answer. Like he was aping words that had been said to him over and over and over, inside the nut house. "How does it make you feel, young man?"

 

He pulled Teddy up from the floor, his cheek practically ripping away from it where he'd sweated and stuck. Teddy's whine was shrill but he went up easy, loose limbed, no match for Ron's brute strength. Ron shoved Teddy's legs out from under him, got him sitting pretty in his lap as he knelt, twisted deeper still onto his prick, and wrapped his thick arms around Teddy's chest. He thrust up like he was humping the fucking air. Like there was no resistance at all.

 

Teddy let his head drop back limp and useless on Ron's shoulder, mouth open, and wrapped a loose fist around his half-hard prick that he'd have some warm space to jerk up into every time Ron nailed him. It wasn't exactly the point of the exercise.

 

And then Ron pulled right out, no warning. Teddy let out a wail, staggered forward onto his hands, and Ronnie shushed him in a tone that was gentler than it had any right to be. He manhandled Teddy onto his stomach, putting his limbs in place one at a time, easy as he'd wrangle someone entirely unconscious. He kneaded Teddy's soft, sore arse apart, and lay himself between the splay of Teddy's legs, and pushed back in, slower, slow. There was something calmer about him now, still that feral mindlessness to get what he needed of Teddy, but he was no longer frantic for it. Secure in the knowledge, maybe, that Teddy was here for him. 

 

He came just a few thrusts in. Thick and deep inside Teddy. And Teddy just thought, pressed here into the floor full of Ron's come, that he'd been given--a privilege. Chosen, somehow, by Ronnie Kray for a purpose he couldn't yet fathom. Maybe just to get himself fucked on the regular. 

 

But maybe more than that.

 

He heard Ron clamber up. Heard the clatter of his trousers and belt on the floor, finally undressing. He staggered out of the caravan naked, and Teddy could hear the sounds of water, Ron splashing himself clean from a bucket, then a steady streaming as he pissed. 

 

Teddy was always pretty spry after his mouth got fucked, cheeky and wanting; loved it when he could needle the awkward married men into kissing his come-stained lips and tongue. But after Ronnie, he felt bruised. Bruised and strangely sated, though his own pleasure was long forgotten, his prick not even half mast since he hit the floor.

 

It felt right to him, to be used by a man like Ronnie. Someone with power and reputation. Like a part of that could be driven into Teddy with every thrust of his prick. 

 

Ron climbed back into the caravan, stopped for a second or two, and then with shocking delicacy, picked Teddy up from the floor and hefted him into his arms. Carried him like a bride across a threshold. He had scars from prison on his chest and arms, and more scars from hospital, and Teddy buried his nose in Ron's neck to smell his sweat and aftershave and something of the forest. It suited him, that natural wildness. 

 

Ron put him down on the tiny bed and gave Teddy his fingers to suckle on instead of keening about the burn in his arse and thighs. "Do you get fond, Teddy?" He asked, his voice sounding unused and rough. He spoke slow, repeated himself , like fucking had made him forget how to be civilised. "Do you get--fond easy, yeah?"

 

Teddy shook his head into the pillow, petulant. It was true. He enjoyed things. Nobody needed to get attached. Ronnie climbed into the bed, no room behind him, so he rolled Teddy on top of him like a limp blanket. Pulled the thin duvet over them both. 

 

"I want you to be fond of me," Ronnie said, stroking his wide hand down Teddy's back. It could have been a threat or it could have been a plea. That strange, satisfying pity settled low in Teddy's stomach. Even as he was sore to the marrow of his bones.

 

He wasn't going to walk comfortably for days. 

 

Ron'd like that, he thought. He grinned into Ronnie's shoulder. He wanted Reg to see it too.

 

*

 

Reg came along that morning. Let himself into the caravan, lit a cigarette. Looked over his twin brother, half asleep with a naked boy in his lap. Teddy turned his head lazily, an ache in every muscle of his body. 

 

"Gonna get me a cuppa?" Reg asked mildly. 

 

*

 

They went to the Barn sometimes, Ron and Reggie and whoever Reggie's girl was at the time, and Teddy. Ron had incredibly singular focus when he was with Reggie, staring at him as though they were still in the womb, half formed knuckles touching, each the other's entire world. The spotlight of Reg's gaze was far less fixed, and it made him charming and popular. Everyone wanted a nod from Reggie Kray.

 

Ron kept his big palm on Teddy's thigh the whole night, kneading it like a spoilt cat. Whenever people - girls especially - talked to Reggie, he dug his nails right into the meat of Teddy's leg. He quite liked it. Made him want to put his hand on Ron's cock. But not here, even he knew that.

 

Not right in front of Reggie.

 

The club was smoky and warm, a sort of dream, rich fucks and struggling artists rubbing shoulders, and Teddy could pick out three separate black market deals happening on different tables. He wanted to absorb it all, like inhaling cigarette smoke, his lungs full of rotten talk and boozy laughter, the sultry voice of the girl on stage, the blare of the band, the clink of whiskey glasses and bottles of wine. He was wearing a suit Ron had bought for him, a taut little bow tie, shoes someone else had shined and a gold watch too big for his slim wrists. 

 

He loved it. Loved this life. Wouldn't go so far as to say he loved Ron, but it wasn't half fucking bad, all this for a few nights a week of Ron's thick cock splitting him open wherever he damn felt like it. 

 

Ronnie leaned over and whispered close in his ear, "Everyone in this room will be dead one day, Teddy." He didn't take his eyes off Reggie for a second.

 

"How many of 'em you gonna take down, Ron?" Teddy asked, grinning.

 

"You little shit," Ronnie said, surprisingly mildly. "I'm gonna have someone bend you in half and fuck you."

 

"You do that, Ron," Teddy told him, the little thrill of a shudder coursing down his spine. 

 

Reggie pulled him aside that night, as they stumbled out of the Barn, a few drinks worse for wear. Ron's gun was sticking out the front of his trousers where he'd tucked it, and Teddy had nimbly plucked it out, slipped it out of sight into the holster under his jacket. Ronnie got heavy-handed with him, kissed his mouth roughly, there in the street, groped at his crotch some, until Reggie said, "Oi boys, my boys, cool it down, now."

 

Teddy hung back with Reggie and took an offered cigarette. Reg looked, Teddy thought, very suave with something between his lips.

 

"My brother doesn't need protecting," Reggie said sternly, walking as slow as his long legs allowed. Teddy wondered if he was in for a thumping, after babying Ron, and found he didn't much mind the idea. Of being marked up by Reg. 

 

Nonetheless.

 

"I want you to look out for him anyway," Reggie said.

 

"Swear it, on my life."

 

Reg spat out a low laugh. "I wouldn't offer up your life so freely around Ron, kid."

 

"On my life," Teddy said again anyway. Grinning.

 

*

 

There would be a time when Reggie was the negotiator, the deal breaker, the threat, and Ronnie was the violence. That time had always been coming, and Teddy wanted to be there when it crashed through the surface and ran amok.Wanted to be there when the Krays owned London.

 

And he would be. He would be. 

 

But there was so much to be before that time came. 

 

 


End file.
